STOCKHOLM, Dec 4 (Reuters) - The top executive ofFingerprint Cards expects seven or eight of theworld's biggest smartphone makers to offer fingerprintrecognition technology from 2014 in a race to defend marketshare and keep up with trend-setter Apple.

Following Apple's September launch of the iPhone 5S - thefirst smartphone to include a fingerprint identity sensor - theSwedish company hopes to ramp up revenues by selling its sensorsto other top mobile phone makers like Samsung, LGElectronics and Huawei.

"I think at least seven or eight will launch a phone with atouch sensor in 2014," Johan Carlstrom, Fingerprint's ChiefExecutive Officer, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

Fingerprint Cards hopes to clinch contracts with "themajority" of those firms, he said.

Carlstrom said Samsung, the world's biggest maker ofsmartphones, was expected to launch at least one smartphone witheither a swipe or touch fingerprint sensor next year andFingerprint aimed to be one of its suppliers.

($1 = 6.5191 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Mia Shanley and Olof Swahnberg; Editing by SimonJohnson)